There is hope for chronic pelvic pain

​Hello, Bernie here.​Chronic pelvic pain (CPP) is a weird thing! It has lots of potential causes which mean sufferers often go from specialist to specialist only to be told that they are 'normal' when they feel anything but.The sad thing is that CPP is almost as common as low back pain but has less than 5% of the funding for research. I think this is because, unlike back pain, CPP is not necessarily situated in any one structure or anatomical area. So who would do the research? Gynaecologist? Urologist? Orthopaedic consultant? Neurologist? It is also much harder to talk about. We all know someone who would freely admit to back pain but how many of us would happily share that we have pain in our genital area or back passage?

To make things even more complicated, your body has certain unhelpful responses to pain. Broadly speaking, pain causes us to move strangely or adapt how we use our bodies and this has lasting consequences. Think of it like a computer that gets a virus which has corrupted the programming - from that point forward the computer is not running properly, causing system glitches along the way. Understanding CPP involves a lot of detective work to unpick all the system glitches and restore normal function using treatment techniquest and individually specific rehabilitation

A Physiotherapist specialising in CPP needs to have a firm understanding of the musculo-skeletal, uro-gynaecology, neurological (including sympathetic and parasympathetic) and endocrine systems. It is also very important to understand the nature of chronic pain and the effects on the body of stress, anxiety and depression. Perhaps now it is becomming clear why finding help is so difficult!

The sad thing is that, by the time folks get to me, they are often already exhausted (and maybe even financially depleted) by their search for help. All I can say is that for an investment of one session, you will begin to understand how specialist Physiotherapy can help with CPP. After that, the choice is yours. Come and talk to me.